How to Create Shortcuts for Modern UI Apps in Windows 8.1

In an earlier post I had showed you a way to create shortcut and launch Modern apps on Windows startup using their URL protocol value. However, URL protocol wasn’t available for all apps. In a post today Sergey from Winaero.com showed a way to create shortcut for any installed Modern app using the AppUserModelID (Application User Model ID) value.

Steps

Open the Run dialog box, type in shell:AppsFolder, and hit Enter. This will open the ‘Applications’ folder which lists all installed desktop and modern apps in Windows.

In the folder press F10, go to ‘View’ menu item, and click on ‘Choose details’. In the next dialog, tick the ‘AppUserModelId’ checkbox.

Now change the folder’s view to “Details”. You should now be able to see a column named ‘AppUserModelId’ – this is what we’ll use for creating the shortcut.

Now scroll to the app for which you wish to create a shortcut, and note its ‘AppUserModelId’ value. For example, here I’ll create a shortcut for the Dropbox app.

Dropbox app’s value is C27EB4BA.Dropbox_xbfy0k16fey96!App – note down the value for your own app.

Tip: You can’t copy the value from here. An easier way is to type the first few characters of your chosen app’s AppUserModelId value in the address bar. Rest is auto-suggested. Copy it from there.

Now go to your desktop, and create a shortcut with the following as target: explorer.exe shell:AppsFolder\ . Append the app’s value. For example:

explorer.exe shell:AppsFolder\C27EB4BA.Dropbox_xbfy0k16fey96!App

You need to specify the name and icon for the Modern app’s shortcut as those values are not fetched directly from the Applications folder.

That’s it! You can create as many shortcuts as you want following the same method, pin them to your taskbar, or add it to your Startup folder.